


Strange Allies

by Sed



Series: Revelation [5]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Anthology, Established Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-23 05:55:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6107131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sed/pseuds/Sed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a collection of short stories detailing some events that were only mentioned in passing during the first arc of my <i>Revelation</i> series.</p><p>Completed as of 3-4-2018</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Food for Thought

**Author's Note:**

> I will be adding to the collection as I go. These stories are not required reading to understand or follow along with the primary series or its individual arcs. Additionally, each chapter will be an individual, self contained short story. They are not in chronological order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first story takes place in the background of chapter 2 of _Red Flags_.

“I think the colonel may have had a little _too much_ fun at the party last night,” Sisko observed with an air of amusement. “It looks like we’re on our own until she wakes up.”

Damar watched him from the corner of his eye, still wary of whatever powers the captain might possess. It wasn’t that he _feared_ Sisko, exactly; he simply found him incredibly unsettling on an almost primal level. Cardassians were not religious, nor even superstitious people. They did not give themselves over to flights of fancy or low-minded ignorance. But he had seen and _felt_ what the wormhole aliens—the _Prophets—_ were capable of. That kind of strength in the hands of a human was disconcerting, to say the least. As a species it had been his experience that humans possessed all the same basic qualities as the average Cardassian; guile, intellect, and a penchant for creativity that many other races in the quadrant simply did not possess. They could train their bodies to become effective weapons through discipline, and their penchant for inventing weapons of war was second only to the Klingons. However, more often than not they seemed hopelessly mired in their tendency to lose focus and indulge their baser desires when not specifically engaged in a task—something Damar himself had been well known for in the past. Although he was hardly a prime example of the ideal Cardassian.

“If you’d like,” he said, “I can simply return to my quarters for the time being. My acting head of state has sent half a dozen urgent communiques since last night, and I’ve been meaning to delete them from my message log.”

Sisko seemed animated all of a sudden; excited by some idea he hadn’t yet voiced. It made Damar anxious. “How about,” he began, raising one finger toward the ceiling, “we postpone the meeting altogether, and get something to eat?”

“Eat?” Damar asked skeptically.

“An early lunch. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t eaten since last night.”

He hesitated, watching Sisko as though he might suddenly decide to forego a walk to the replimat and rip them back through time and space to some era in Earth’s past, instead. “I… could use something to eat,” he said. It felt like a mistake, but proper decorum dictated he should accept his host’s invitation. Politics were a cruel master. “The replicators here have a decent pattern for some Cardassian dishes.”

Sisko was already shaking his head before Damar could even finish. “I’m talking about _real_ food. Something that sticks to your ribs.” He waved dismissively at the replicator on the wall and started for the door. “This is my treat,” he said with a smile that made Damar want to put more space between them.

 

  
“How do you feel about catfish?” Sisko called to Damar from his kitchenette. He had the unusual setup tucked to one side of his main room. It included several heating elements, a set of basins, and a few other additions that seemed at best anachronistic in the setting. While he spoke, he was diligently slicing up several fleshy red fruits and depositing them into a large pot.

“At least half of that sounds appetizing,” Damar answered. He was sitting on Sisko’s couch, which was odd enough, and before him sat several framed images of the captain's family. Damar recognized Jake Sisko, of course. He felt briefly embarrassed to be sitting in the home of the man whose son he had once jailed and intended to execute. Not that he believed Weyoun would have let him, but that distinction probably didn't make a great deal of difference to most people. “I’m sorry,” he added quickly, “I don’t mean to be rude. I’m not accustomed to offworld foods. It took some getting used to the meals on Bajor, and I haven’t had much else but Cardassian cuisine since I’ve returned home.”

“There’s nothing like comfort food, but I like to mix it up every now and then,” Sisko said, “throw in a few of those _offworld_ ingredients.” He stopped and looked over at Damar, chuckling. “Though I guess for your sake I’ll leave out the tube grubs—this time.”

“What?”

But the captain had already resumed his intense concentration on divesting some unfamiliar green vegetable of its seeds, and seemed to have lost all interest in conversation. Within minutes he had filled the pot with a heaping mound of colorful foods, eventually adding a large helping of pale pink chunks to the conglomeration before he began doling out a second round of ground spices. Admittedly it did smell delicious, and Damar was beginning to feel more at ease with the thought of sharing a meal in Sisko’s home. If only he thought that meant they wouldn’t have to share conversation, as well.

“Perfect,” Sisko said, pulling the end of a spoon from his mouth. “Now, let that simmer for a bit, and we’ll be in business.”

Damar tried not to stare, but he was dumbfounded by the way Captain Sisko—Benjamin Sisko, hero of the Dominion War and Emissary to the Prophets—seemed to become a completely different man when surrounded by his familiar trappings. He nearly danced around the workings of his kitchen, hands flying from one utensil to another with the ease of an artist. It was admirable, and, yet again, mildly intimidating. He had a number of very large knives.

With the contents of the pot left to cook, Sisko joined Damar on the other side of the room, taking a seat in a single chair by the window. He took a moment to relax before he straightened himself up and slipped back into the more familiar mask of the Starfleet captain. “So,” he began, “I suppose I don’t have to ask if you’ve spoken to Colonel Kira since we arrived yesterday.”

It was a far more personal question than Damar had expected, but he managed to hide his surprise. “No. She hasn’t…” He cleared his throat and shook his head. “It seemed better to leave her be.” It would only make his gesture on Cardassia a hollow one, were he to do anything else. He looked up at Sisko with narrowed eyes. “But then I suppose you already knew that.”

The captain smiled, but he didn’t seem amused. He was watching Damar like an instructor testing a pupil. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Damar, but I had better things to do than observe the minor details of your life. You’re part of a _much_ bigger series of events.”

The prospect of examining his miniscule role in the workings of the greater cosmos was perhaps the _least_ appealing activity Damar could think of to pass the time, and so he shook his head. “I’d rather not know what parts of my future were relevant to those events,” he said. Searching the room for something else to discuss, his eyes again fell upon the pictures of Sisko’s family. “Didn’t you miss them?” he asked, aware that it was perhaps a bit rude to pry into the captain’s life. Then again, turnabout was fair play.

“Why would you say that?” Sisko asked.

“You spent a year away from them. Your wife… she gave birth to your child. Was it worth whatever insight you gained, missing so much time with your family?”

It had been a foolish urge to ask such deeply personal questions, and he regretted them almost the instant the words left his mouth, but to Damar’s surprise, the captain didn’t seem at all offended. He looked away, past the pictures, focusing on some distant place that wasn’t really in the room with them. After a moment he seemed to shrug off whatever had been occupying his thoughts and said, “But I didn’t actually _miss_ anything.”

“I don’t understand—”

“I was there for all of it,” Sisko said. He didn’t offer any further explanation, and instead stood up and returned to the kitchen.

Damar was left to ponder the meaning on his own, and it took him some time before he finally arrived at a satisfactory conclusion. “You went back,” he said.

Sisko had taken another taste of his creation, and apparently found the results satisfying, if the noises he made were anything to go by. Without looking at Damar he aimed a finger at him and said, “There you go.”

“But you weren’t really _with_ them.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” the captain said. He pulled two bowls from a shelf and began ladling out the contents of the pot. “I was, and then again, I wasn’t.” He carried the bowls to the table and set them down, gesturing for Damar to join him.

The prospect of being granted a second chance, of regaining lost time, filled Damar with a sort of jealousy he hadn’t felt in many years. His own family had suffered for his rise to power, and, if he were to be completely honest with himself, his own willful neglect. He had failed in his duties to his wife and son, just as he had failed in so many aspects of his life. If only he had the power to go back and correct those mistakes; but would it do any good? Hadn’t he already learned the futility of dwelling on the past? That was the domain of much wiser creatures than himself.

Still, it was a painfully tempting thought. Damar’s fear of the power Sisko had once wielded subsided just long enough for his curiosity to intrude. “You watched them?” he asked. “Were they aware of your presence?”

“I thought I explained how it works last time. You’d better start eating that before it gets cold.”

Damar frowned; he didn’t bother to remind Sisko that in fact he _hadn’t_ explained. He had a feeling it would only end up brushed aside, anyway.

The chunks of meat that had previously been slightly pink, slouched blobs were now firm and white. Damar lifted one on his spoon and considered it for a few seconds before he decided to give in and simply trust that the captain wasn’t going to make him sick. Not purposely, anyway.

“This is delicious,” he said, genuinely surprised.

“I know my audience,” Sisko beamed. “Eat up.”

Damar ate as he was instructed, quite happy to do so. If only he’d known that his options on the station weren’t limited to two Cardassian dishes and tea, he might have enjoyed his previous visits a bit more. “This would be popular on Cardassia,” he said.

“I’ll give you the recipe. Although catfish might be a little difficult to find in this sector, but I know of one or two decent substitutes you can get from Bajor.”

The mention of Bajor reminded Damar of the captain’s family. “Why didn’t you bring your wife and children back with you?” he asked.

Still displaying a level of patience that Damar wouldn’t have expected, Sisko said, “They’ll be joining me soon. Kasidy wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Bajor just yet.”

“I would imagine she had reservations about raising her child on this station, as well.”

Sisko nodded. “We had a few  _long_ discussions about it,” he said. “But kids adapt. You’ll find that it’s less about where they are, and more about the people surrounding them—the experiences they have. And,” he added, sounding just a little defensive, “it isn’t like this station is such a _bad_ place.”

“You sound as if you’re talking to your wife, rather than me,” Damar observed.

“I just might be,” Sisko said with a smile. He finished the last of the stew in his bowl and leaned back in his chair. “Well, I think it’s time we woke Colonel Kira,” he announced. With a sly smile that reminded Damar of the wariness he had been so quick to forget before, he added, “ _If_ you’re ready, that is.”

 


	2. Quid Pro Quo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story takes place during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor.

A dry wind had kicked up from the south, blasting the camp with sheets of sand that fell like a hard, unrelenting rain. Gul Parlan Kren rubbed some of the accumulated grit from his eyes and tried to focus on the endless list of prisoner identification numbers on the padd in his hand. He couldn’t seem to tell one string of digits apart from another, which was a problem; one of his daily tasks was compiling a report of worker fatalities to submit to Central Command. Something about a new initiative to reduce the number of deaths in the labor camps. It was all nonsense to him—telling them not to work the Bajorans to death _as_ quickly just meant working them to death slowly. The whole thing seemed like a ridiculous political stunt; the Bajorans were going to die there anyway, that was the whole _point_ of a labor camp. They weren’t there for a short stay. What difference did it make when the inevitable happened?

“You there!” he heard someone shout. It was Takur… or Takul. Kren couldn’t be bothered to remember most of their names. The turnover rate in the camp was as high as the fatalities. The young men they sent him weren’t interested in standing around watching half-starved Bajorans slave away in a mine that hadn’t produced a decent sized shipment of ore in ten years. They wanted action. They wanted to be out capturing some of the glory promised to them by the same propaganda that had landed Kren right where he was. Standing under the entrance to an almost empty mine shaft, trying to keep the sand out of his armor.

The woman Tak-whatever had stopped was clutching a small bag, and from beneath the scraps of cloth she had wrapped around herself to keep the sand out, Kren could see long wisps of pale, stringy hair. “Let her pass,” he called out. “She’s not a threat.” What was it the men called her… “She’s the nurse.”

Tak-whatever continued to harass the woman for another few seconds, and then with a sneer he reached out and shoved her forward to carry on her way. She held the bag to her chest and hurried off toward the main building without looking back.

Kren had already turned back to his fatality report when he noticed Tak-whatever approaching from over the top of the padd. “What?” he asked as the young officer joined him under the entrance to the mine.

“Why do we let her wander around like that?”

Kren sighed. Many of the soldiers they sent him—many being _most_ , especially in recent years—were frustrated by the realities of dealing with the Bajorans. They had been drilled in their rules and procedures and they wanted to follow them to the letter because that’s what good soldiers did. But Kren had enough bodies to dispose of already, and he knew how much longer his least favorite task would take if he let the men enforce half the rules set in place by Central Command.

Before he could think of a sufficiently dismissive response, Tak-whatever continued, “I’ve never seen her working. All she does is shuffle around, passing out food and tying bandages around the other Bajorans.”

“Congratulations,” Kren drolled, “you’ve puzzled out the origin of her nickname.” The woman’s tendency to look after the other prisoners, coupled with his own disinterest in learning any of their identification numbers—much less their names—had resulted in a much easier to remember title that seemed to suit everyone. Except, apparently, Tak… “What the hell is your name?” Kren demanded, lowering the padd so he could actually take a look at the young man.

“Terammen, sir,” came the too-crisp reply.

Kren frowned. He hadn’t even been close. “Terammen, you’re not going to understand this now, but I’ll explain it anyway: if we punished these Bajorans for every minor infraction, I’d have no one left to work the mine. They’re difficult, and they like to push us. They like to see how far they can bend the rules before we finally put a stop to it. Like a riding hound constantly testing how hard it can tug the lead before you pull back. Understand?”

Terammen looked like he might have ridden a hound or two; he had the clean-cut look of a man from a good family, whose connections had landed him somewhere he wouldn’t get vaporized by a terrorist’s improvised bomb. Surely he would understand such a simple analogy.

But Kren only received a blank stare for his efforts. “Get back to your post,” he sighed.

“Sir.”

Kren returned to his monotonous task, his eyes drifting over the columns as he searched for the marks denoting the dead. They were already long gone, of course; buried in a pit somewhere a kilometer outside of the camp. Downwind, so anything the scavengers managed to dig up didn’t come back to assault the living. It was a monthly tradition to make the incoming prisoners dig a new pit, just to remind them where disobedience would lead. Kren found the whole thing off putting, but effective in a macabre sort of way. Then again, most of the men and women sent to him were so downtrodden by the time they arrived, they didn’t have a great deal of spirit left to break.

A gentle shuffling caught his attention, and he looked up from the blur of brightly illuminated numbers on his padd. “What do you want?” he asked. It was a different soldier this time. Kren squinted at the man’s face—no, it was Terammen again.

“Sir, I’ve just received word that a new labor shipment is due to arrive this afternoon.”

“They weren’t supposed to be here for three more weeks,” Kren complained. “Who told you this?”

“Yarem relayed the message a few minutes ago,” Terammen said.

Yarem was the frail little gil who practically lived at the communications console in the main building. He wasn’t good for much else, and he certainly couldn’t handle a weapon. Kren sighed through his nose and shoved the padd he’d been using into the holster on the side of his belt. He had once kept a disruptor in there, but over the years the space had proved more useful as a makeshift pocket. “I’ll deal with this,” he growled. “You stay here.”

“Sir!”

Kren rolled his eyes and brushed past without bothering to acknowledge Terammen’s overeager boot licking. Outside the protective mouth of the mine entrance the wind had whipped the sand into a painful frenzy. It turned the tiny red grains into a torrent of invisible knives that made him grimace as he tried to cover his face and still see his way to the main building. Once inside, he smashed his fist against the door panel to shut it. “Yarem!” he shouted.

“Gul Kren?” he heard Yarem’s diminutive squeak from the operations office around the corner.

The gil appeared around a doorway. He was a full head shorter than any other man in the camp, and even some of the Bajorans. Kren straightened up to his full height and looked down on the boy. “What is this about the new prisoners arriving today?”

“Actually, sir, they’ve already arrived…”

“I haven’t heard anything about an early shipment. What authorization codes were they transmitting?” Without waiting for an answer, Kren stormed down the corridor into the operations office. Yarem scuttled behind, trying to explain himself the whole way. Sure enough, the sensor panel was showing a Cardassian shuttle on its way down. “Go out there and tell whoever is piloting that shuttle that I want to see them in here, now. This isn’t procedure.” The meaningful echo of his earlier unspoken criticism wasn’t lost on Kren, but he soundly ignored it. _He_ knew when to obey the rules and when to bend them. That was his call to make as the ranking officer.

Yarem bolted from the room, disappearing for a short time. He returned with another Cardassian soldier in tow. “Glinn Urek,” he said, before hastily departing for the safety of his beloved communications console.

“Gul Kren,” Urek said, bowing his head slightly. “I apologize for the unusual circumstances.”

“And just what _are_ these circumstances?” Kren asked. He didn’t like the look of this Urek; he was well cut and broad shouldered, and looked far too put together to be ferrying condemned Bajorans to their fate. Either he had angered the wrong person at some point, or he was a bad soldier. Either way, it was in Kren’s best interests not to become too friendly with him. It could look bad.

“I’m sure you’re aware of the recent terrorist incident at the camp on Simperia?” Urek asked.

Kren wasn’t even aware they _had_ a camp on Simperia. “Of course,” he lied.

“Well, the damage was significant, and unfortunately most of the laborers have to be relocated until the camp is rebuilt.”

“So they shuttled them here.” Just the sort of shortsighted bureaucracy he expected from Central Command. “More work for me.”

“You have my sincere apologies, sir.”

Kren huffed and crossed his arms. “Apologies won’t make up for the sleep my men are going to lose covering extra shifts to monitor these new Bajorans.” Complaints _he_ would have to field until the numbers whittled down again. “How many do you have?”

Urek hesitated. “I’m… not certain of the exact count, I’m afraid. But—” He stopped and reached back to pull something from his belt. It was a silver flask, no larger than his palm. “Perhaps this will make up for the inconvenience I’ve caused you,” he said with a sly smile.

Kren knew something good when he saw it. The flask had a gold seal around the neck and someone’s family monogram pressed into the front. “What’ve you got there?” he asked, inclining his head.

“Just a small souvenir I liberated from the rubble during my stop on Simperia. I couldn’t tell you the specific vintage, but I can tell from the scent that it’s a good one.”

Urek must have been desperate not to have a complaint filed against him to offer such a rare gift to someone like Kren. “Well, if you’re offering,” Kren said. He held out his hand and Urek quickly slapped the flask into his open palm. “You can have my men help you unload the Bajorans. Tell them to gather shovels.”

“Of course,” Urek nodded. Without so much as a word of thanks he turned on his heel and marched from the room, disappearing into the corridor faster than Kren could process how rude he had been.

“No wonder he’s piloting a shuttle,” he muttered. Turning the flask over in his hand, he shrugged and unscrewed the cap to take a sip. It was upended completely by the time he realized there was no liquid inside. He looked into the mouth of the flask, frowning at his luck that he’d been swindled into accepting a bad bribe. As he turned it sideways to peer deeper past the neck, he caught sight of a blinking red light, affixed to the top of a small, gray cylinder, and his blood ran cold.

“Bomb!” he shouted, hurling the flask as far from himself as he could. It was too late; the flash of the detonation was so bright it felt like daggers in his eyes, and Kren threw his arm out instinctively to protect himself. He felt the roar of the explosion as if it had happened in the center of his skull, and then the whole world fell apart around him, leaving him in silence.

  
  


“Wake up,” he heard a voice instructing him gently. “Wake up.”

“Y—Yarem…” he groaned, trying to sit up.

Something pinned him down, heavy and unyielding atop his chest. Kren fought the tempting pull of darkness and opened his eyes, finding that there was little more light to be found in consciousness. Shafts of red filtered in from somewhere overhead, and dust motes danced in the light beams as the sound of settling rubble reached his ears.

His arm ached, and the sharp pain he knew to be a burn was punctuated only by a steady throb deep in the tissue. He carefully lifted his arm to see if the bones had been broken. There was no resistance, no heavy weight to heft at the end of his shoulder. With slowly dawning horror Kren carefully turned his head aside to peer at his arm, and a raw, pained scream drowned in his throat as he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. The limb appeared to have been blown off above the right bicep, and what had been his shoulder now existed only as a raw stump, bleeding unevenly through several layers of dirty cloth wrapped around the wound.

“My arm—my—”

“ _Shhh,_ it’s alright,” the same voice soothed.

The building had collapsed. With what damage Kren could make out surrounding him, it was a miracle that he hadn’t been vaporized by the blast. Even so, the sight of his own limb ripped away was more than he was prepared to process. “It’s not alright!” he shouted. “It’s… Damn it, where is Yarem!”

“Yarem is dead.”

Kren froze. It was a woman’s voice, and there were no women on his staff. “Who’s there?” he demanded.

From the nearby shadows appeared the Bajoran woman from earlier. Her skin was covered in a thick coating of dust, and her pale, stringy hair hung about her face in disarray. “ _You,_ ” Kren hissed. “What happened to Yarem?!”

“I’ve wrapped your wounds, but I cannot lift the section of wall pinning you down. You’ll have to wait until help arrives. If it does.”

“Answer my question!”

She was quiet, and Kren could tell she was thinking; probably weighing the cost of disobedience if she simply ignored him. “He was killed,” she said finally. “I found him when I was trying to escape from the building.”

Killed by the explosion, or the unseen hand of a quiet Bajoran woman sneaking about where she didn’t belong? “We never should have given you so much access to this building,” Kren muttered.

“If I hadn’t been here, you would have bled to death.”

He snorted. “This is all burned,” he said, lifting his arm stump and waving it in the air. He clenched his teeth at the painful cost of proving his point.

The woman’s eyes drifted down the length of his body, past the heavy debris that pinned him in place. “Your arm… wasn’t the only injury you sustained,” she said quietly. There was a strange note of sympathy in her words that made Kren’s skin prickle in fear.

“What do you—” He stopped. He could feel it, or rather, he could feel the _lack of it_ ; his leg, on the same side as his missing arm. “My leg,” he gasped, struggling now to breathe evenly. “What happened—what did—”

“Calm down,” the woman urged. She placed a hand on his chest, but he couldn’t feel it through his armor. “You must keep calm, or you’ll bleed more.”

“Don’t tell me to be calm!” he shouted. His heart was throwing itself against his chest, and his vision started to blur. He was going to pass out—or die. “You, you and that traitor, it’s all the same... “ He couldn’t _breathe_. What would he do? How would he serve with half of his body torn away? He had no wife, no children. What sort of life could half a man lead? “No, no. They’ll give me replacements,” he wheezed, trying to calm himself. “I can get new limbs.”

“Not if you die, please, _calm yourself,_ ” the woman urged.

“This is just what you want, isn’t it?!”

She shook her head. “I don’t want anyone to suffer like this, not even you.”

“Lies!” he shouted, throwing his remaining arm out toward her. She backed away in the small space available, and he just missed connecting with the side of her head. “Why are you here? Are you waiting for me to lose consciousness so you can finish what your terrorist friends started? Why wake me at all? You could have let me bleed to death, isn’t that what you said?” She just wanted to watch him suffer, watch the horror as he realized that he would never be whole again.

“No,” she shook her head, explaining plaintively, “I only said that I stopped you from—”

“Shut up! I won’t hear any more of your lies, _Bajoran_. Filth like you… I don’t need your _pity._ You wanted to escape, so escape! Now is your chance! I’m sure the others are outside slaughtering my men, releasing the other prisoners so they can spread like disease and wreak chaos and destruction all over the Union. That’s what you do! So go!”

Still huddled away from the reach of his one arm, she watched him, and Kren hated her for it. Why wouldn’t she just _leave?_ He could feel her eyes boring into his skull. Her cold judgement as she sat tucked into the corner between two charred metal slabs. It made him want to scream.

 _Fine,_ he decided after several minutes of trying to stare her down. If he couldn’t force her to go, then he would ignore her. He turned his head away and looked at the remains of the wall beside him. After some time, when he was just starting to think that perhaps she was only watching for her own sick amusement, he heard the sound of shuffling and the scrape of boots over the dust. He turned back to look for her only to find she was gone.

“Good.”

Alone at last, he finally gave in to the urge to weep for himself and his empty, wasted life.

  
  


She returned some time later. Kren heard her approaching, and at first his heart lifted with the hope of rescue; it was reality that brought him back down again. Reinforcements were two days away, at best. The nearest military post wouldn’t know something was wrong until they stopped receiving reports, and with the lax standards so common among the far-flung camps at the edges of the Union, even then their predicament might go undiscovered for some time.

When she poked her small head through a hole in the rubble he sighed and asked, “What is it you want from me? Leniency? Do you want to have your life spared because you refused to leave my side, like a loyal pet?”

“I’ve brought you water,” she said, ignoring his taunts.

“You went outside?” There was a communal pump located beside the entrance to the barracks. The men used it to wash the dust from their armor and clean their equipment. The Bajorans used it for bathing and drinking, as far as he knew. “What’s happened out there?”

“I couldn’t get outside,” she said. “The building is sealed shut.”

Of course: the security shield. It would have activated when the internal sensors detected an explosion. The last thing Central Command wanted was Bajorans with free access to military equipment and transporters. If that system remained operational, there was a chance others had, as well. If only he could get to them. “So you can’t escape after all. Where did you get the water?”

“Your quarters,” she said.

“You went into my quarters?!”

“The security lock on the door was disabled by the blast. I found some food as well, and this.” She reached back to drag a large, worn sack forward through the hole she had used to reach him. With one hand she dug through the contents and pulled out a glass bottle.

“Kanar?” he asked.

“I thought you might be glad of a drink, given the circumstances.”

Kren narrowed his eyes. When she handed him the bottle he quickly tore it from her hand. After a few minutes spent trying to pry the stopper out with his teeth, he sighed and held it out to her again. “I can’t open it,” he muttered.

While he watched her tug at the top of the long, twisted bottle, he said, “I’m not going to release you just because you brought me kanar.”

The stopper finally came out with a hollow pop. “I don’t expect you to,” she said. She handed the bottle back to him and then began unpacking the rest of her haul.

It was a poor man’s kanar; cheaply made and sour on the tongue, but it did the job. Kren groaned as the syrupy liquid rolled down his throat. When he’d knocked back a third of it he set the bottle down on the slab of broken bulkhead across his chest. “So, you’re just doing this out of goodness? Kindly sentiment?” He snorted. “Or are you going to tell me you actually _like_ Cardassians?”

“I don’t like you at all,” she said plainly.

Kren was shocked that he actually found the comment offensive. He should have expected it. The Union had spared these criminals from their fate, given them a chance to atone for their crimes before they died, instead of facing a swift and just execution as the law demanded. But the Bajorans were too ignorant to recognize the charity they had been granted. “Then why?” he asked.

Whatever expectations he had of her responses, they didn’t include a stretch of silence that lasted more than ten minutes by his count. He had already brought the bottle down to its last two or three sips when she finally said, “I don’t know.”

“That’s it?”

“Perhaps… there is a reason we’re trapped together like this. I’ve always felt compelled to look after others, and you certainly needed my help. Although I confess I briefly considered letting you die.”

“I’m pleased you’re finally able to admit it,” he muttered into the mouth of the bottle.

She rolled her eyes and continued to eat from the contents of her bag. _His_ food, Kren noted bitterly. Not that he was in much of a position to take it back at the moment. “My faith may not be as strong as others,” she continued, “but I accept that the Prophets’ plan for me may not be clear. If saving you is their will…”

Kren laughed, spilling some of the kanar on his face. “Do you wonder why no one challenged our claim to Bajor? It’s because of talk like that. Your _Prophets_ have nothing to do with any of this—childhood tales are not the reason you survived a bombing and found me here. Do you really think if they were real, if they were as gracious and kind as your backwards people seem to believe, that your gods would have placed you in a labor camp, where you will almost certainly die face down in the sand some day?”

“It’s possible.”

“And for that reason alone you’re going to gamble your life instead of trying to find a way out of here.” He snickered again. “ _Bajorans_.”

“What fills you with so much hate for us?” she asked.

Kren shook his head. “I don’t hate you, I—” He felt nothing for them. They were beneath his notice. Just like his men, he realized. Just like everything else in his life. He hastily pushed those thoughts from his mind and continued, “I don’t hate you. I do my duty, and I see to it those sent here repay the Union for whatever crimes they’ve committed. You aren’t worth hating.”

“Yes, our crimes. You are commander of this camp, so I’m sure you have records. An archive of some sort with our names and sentencing data, correct?”

He thought of the padd in his holster. “We keep immaculate records,” he said, trying to lift his chin just a bit. “Why?”

“Have you ever actually looked at that information?” When he didn’t answer she sneered, “Of course not.”

“I suppose you’re going to claim that these crimes were committed out of necessity, or that you deserve leniency? You’re indigent, and so you must steal. You’re afraid, and so you attack the Cardassians around you to protect yourselves. Stop me when I get to whatever excuse you’ve been practicing in your defense.” He finished the last of the kanar and tossed the bottle aside. It landed somewhere in the darkness, and he could hear the glass shatter against the rubble. That small act of destruction had been more satisfying than he anticipated. “I don’t suppose you were able to reach the stores in the back of the building,” he muttered. There was more kanar, if it had survived the destruction.

“If I could, I wouldn’t have searched your quarters for supplies.”

“You have quite a mouth on you,” he said. “I can only imagine what landed you here in my custody.”

“Why don’t you look?” She pointed to the padd protruding from the side of his belt. “Prisoner number three-six-seven-seven-five, group two.”

“I don’t need to look. Whatever you did was enough to get you sent here, and that’s all the information I need. Any offense worthy of a lesser sentence would have been dealt with appropriately.” He could almost see the words from the procedural handbook as he said them, the text warning compassionate officers not to be swayed by their prisoners. Bajorans were artful liars, manipulative and surprisingly adept at coercion. That was how they turned men like Urek. The gutless coward. “For such a primitive people, you certainly know how to cause a lot of damage,” Kren muttered.

“I wasn’t the one who brought a bomb into this camp,” she said matter-of-factly.

“You might as well have.”

She was silent for a moment, and then Kren heard her mumble, “That isn’t fair.”

“ _Fair?_ ” he barked. “You want to lecture me about what’s fair?” He lifted his tattered shoulder stump, clenching his teeth against the pain as he held it up high. “ _This_ isn’t fair! I did nothing to deserve this, and yet look at me. Look at me!” he shouted when she turned away. “Tell me what you know of fairness, Bajoran!”

She whipped around to pierce him with the most hateful glare he had ever witnessed. “Oh, shut up!” she shrieked. The outburst was so sudden that Kren was left too stunned to do more than stare, mouth agape and eyes wide. “You have done nothing but whine since you woke up, _weeping_ over your lost limbs like you’ve ever used them for anything worthwhile!” With one thin hand she pointed at the center of his chest and sneered, “You are nothing more than a parasite, just like all the rest, and you feed off our blood until we’re nothing more than empty husks. Then you look down on our withered corpses with scorn as if _we’re_ the blight. As if it is _we_ who have invaded your soil. But that is _your_ crime! Tell me, Gul Kren: what could you do if I ripped those bandages from your wounds, if I took back the food and drink I’ve found by digging through this building until my fingers have bled? Would you curse me? Call me a _Bajoran_ again and again, as if that’s some great insult? I take pride in who I am, and pride in my compassion. And that is _all_ that has kept you alive—my _compassion_.”

She crawled over the rubble toward him, coming closer so that her voice would carry more easily above the sounds of the settling building. At that distance Kren knew he could reach out and take hold of her thin neck. He could crush the life out of her with his remaining strength, and be done with her nonsense once and for all. But something stayed his hand. Despite all the reasons he should have destroyed her for her insolence, he continued to listen to her vicious condemnation in silence.

“You don’t deserve it,” she continued, “but that faith you are so quick to mock has saved your life. And it keeps you alive, even now. I have every reason to leave you for dead—to kill you myself! I know what will happen to me when help comes for you and your comrades, and I know you have held that information back from me for fear of what I might do once I learned the truth. Yet here I am. So perhaps you ought to look inward for someone to blame if you are so in need of a place to lay your frustrations.” She sat back on her heels again and made a nasty, mocking sound as she looked down on him. “For all your superior technology, all the greatness of your people that you claim gives you a right to our world, you are still greatly lacking. And yet you’ve convinced yourselves you are above reproach. You have my compassion and my pity, _Cardassian_.”

Her lecture apparently concluded, she disappeared back into the shadows, and out of sight. Kren couldn’t tell if she was still nearby or if she had gone. He didn’t know her name to call for her, and despite the numbers rattling around in his head over and over, he couldn’t bring himself to speak her prisoner identification aloud. Instead he let the darkness and the silence loom over him in her place, and he tried not to think about what she had said.

  
  


Hours passed, or perhaps it was days; Kren slipped in and out of consciousness, waking every so often to find food and drink placed within arm’s reach. There was no other sign of the Bajoran woman’s presence. In the solitude he fought to keep his mind sharp, focusing on the numbers she had recited to him and holding onto them like a tether. He thought of what he could do to exact his revenge once rescue came. All the ways he could make her regret the things she had said to him. It held his wandering thoughts in place, and in that way he was able to remain conscious for longer periods through sheer effort, but it did little for his body. Each time he stirred Kren felt certain the weight of the slab on his chest had grown, and it became harder and harder not to give in to the temptation to scream in frustration. He was tired of lying on his back, pinned down like a wounded animal.

As the hours passed he found himself wishing he had died in the explosion. Subpar soldier though he had been, at least Yarem had been killed in the line of duty. Kren thought of how the hapless boy had probably died sitting at his communications console. That was where the rescue party would find him, and it would be noted in his service record. They would send him home to his family, and Yarem’s loved ones would weep for his loss even as they cursed the wretched Bajorans who had caused his death. More stringent procedures would be developed for dealing with prisoners. A wave of deaths would follow. The pits dug into the bleak landscape with its scavengers and unforgiving wind would fill again and again, and Central Command would find ways to replace the lost numbers. Productivity was paramount, after all.

The sound of shifting rubble eventually drew Kren’s attention, pulling him from his thoughts. He looked to the narrow hole that the woman had used to crawl in and out of the small shelter that surrounded him. Sure enough, he soon caught sight of first her lanky arms, and then her head and its long, unkempt hair as she wriggled through the opening.

“I see you’ve deigned to grace me with your presence again,” he said lazily.

But she didn’t rise to the bait that time. Even through the low light Kren could see that she was pale, and her eyes were wide and frightened.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. His instinct was to sit up, but the slab held him firmly in place. “Is the building—” He cursed and slapped his remaining hand on the ground. It was becoming difficult to manage a full breath with the weight on his chest. “Is the rest of the building collapsing?”

“They’ve come,” she said.

Kren didn’t need to ask who she meant; reinforcements from the nearby outpost. A squadron of armed Cardassian soldiers who would shoot any Bajorans on sight, simply because it was easier than bothering to determine which ones were guilty. He had every reason to delight in the sight of her fear, to bask in the terror that so plainly gripped her at the thought of what they would do when they found her there, but for some reason… For some strange, unfathomable reason, he felt her panic as if it were his own. She was stubborn, and her single outburst had been more than enough to warrant a painful death. He loathed her. Just as she believed, he hated everything about her.

But he also owed her his life. “There’s a small compartment in my quarters, built into the floor,” he said quickly. “You won’t see it at first, but you’ll find the handle by the back left corner of the closet. Hide yourself there until we’re gone.”

“They’ll scan—”

“It’s shielded, if the backup power cell is still running.” It was his personal guarantee of survival, should the worst happen. For all the good it served him when that time had finally come. A hiding place built for one occupant, where he alone would ride out the uprising that every camp commander feared most. “They won’t delay here longer than it takes to rescue the survivors and execute anyone else they find.”

“But—”

“Just _go,_ ” he snapped, flinging his arm out to send her away. He knew what stopped her; they would compare the bodies to the prisoner roster to determine which of the Bajorans had escaped. Those unlucky few, if they were recaptured—and many would be—would suffer a fate even he wasn’t comfortable dwelling on for more than a few disquieting seconds. “I’ll handle it,” was all he said to her.

She watched him for a moment longer, her wide eyes locked on him as though they could see through to his thoughts. And then, so quickly it hardly made any sound at all, she disappeared into the darkness once more.

It wasn’t long before he could hear the first calls of the rescue party. Rubble shifted around him as the building protested their efforts to reach anyone trapped inside. Kren felt his heart beating hard as he reached down with his one remaining arm and felt for the padd at his side, not knowing if it had even survived the explosion. When his fingers finally closed on the device he quickly lifted it to his face, relieved to find it operational. But how could he use it with only one hand? Panicked, he tried to brace it against the slab on his chest, and that worked for a time. It slipped and fell onto the floor more than once, and each time Kren felt his heart jump as he waited to see if it would land within reach. Finally he was able to bring up the prisoner roster. Group two, she had told him.

“Three-six-seven-seven…” he mumbled to himself. “ _Seven-seven_ …”

He’d repeated the numbers to himself so many times, but in his exhaustion and panic he couldn’t remember the last one. Was it nine? Five? He could match the sound, but not the exact digit. Cursing to himself, Kren quickly thumbed down the list until he found the prisoner with the corresponding number; _Tol Haret._ That was a man’s name. Five it was, then.

“Gul Kren, can you hear me!” someone shouted. They weren’t far—perhaps no more than a few meters from where he lay.

Kren ignored their calls. He scanned the nearby numbers for a five, barely registering the name when he finally found it. With all the speed of a skill he had mastered in his years spent toiling at the same tasks over and over, he keyed in the appropriate code to mark her deceased. Just before the wall next to him was pulled away and he dropped the padd in surprise, he caught sight of the column that listed the individual prisoner’s sentencing data. It was blank.

She hadn’t committed any crime.

“Gul Kren!” a soldier exclaimed. “I’ve found him!” More voices joined the first, and the world around him became a blur of activity and triumphant shouting as he was carefully extracted from the rubble. The weight removed from his chest at last, Kren could feel his body giving in to the pain of his injuries and the relief that washed over him at last. He was losing consciousness. Slipping away while he listened to the men around him promise he was safe.

 _He_ was safe.

“Is anyone else alive in here?” someone asked.

Yes, someone was alive, but with any luck they would never find her. Kren allowed himself a small smile as he finally surrendered his fight to stay awake. His last thoughts before darkness overtook him were of the Bajoran woman and her brutal tirade. His reluctant rescuer. Prisoner three-six-seven-seven-five; _Tastha Enar,_ who had committed no crime, and yet saved his life despite all the reasons not to.


	3. Diplomatic Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story takes place shortly after Damar's return to Cardassia Prime.

“I’m ready.”

Kren eyed him up and down and his enormous chest heaved with a silent chuckle. “Sure you are. You look as nervous as a gil on his first posting.”

Why, Damar wondered, did he even bother to keep Kren around? He frowned up at the other Cardassian as he passed, still shrugging into his jacket even as he reached the door. “This barely fits,” he complained. The sleeves ended too high on his wrists, leaving an embarrassing length of undershirt exposed.

  
“You looked like a half-starved hound when you first came here, so it’s not surprising you’ve put on weight since then. I’m sure being poisoned didn’t help matters.”

“I asked you not to speak about that,” Damar said quietly.

Kren dipped his head. “My apologies, Legate. Are you ready now?”

Giving the sleeves of his emerald green jacket one last, hopeless tug, Damar nodded. “I believe so.” He turned to look back at Kren. “Unless you have another opinion on the subject?”

Kren feigned confusion, but he kept his opinion to himself. For once.

They left the room and almost collided with Nelara. She was carrying the same data padd Damar had seen her clenching in her hands since the day he first brought her in to be his assistant. “Legate Damar,” she said breathlessly, “I’ve received word that the Grand Nagus’ ship has just arrived in orbit.”

Damar straightened up. He idly tugged at his collar; it was too tight. “Excellent. Let them know we’re anxious to greet them.”

Nelara nodded and hurried off to carry out his orders. _That_ , Damar noted with satisfaction, was an appropriate response to an order from one’s superior. Kren could learn a thing or two from that young woman.

They continued down the hall, heading out into the large foyer with its three-tiered staircase. An impressively grand design that must have cost the original owner a great deal to build. Assuming they had paid anything at all; if Kren was right, and the home was the property of the Obsidian Order, it was just as likely they had simply commanded some hapless soul to perform the construction free of charge, with a mountain of incentive to do so quietly.

“This is your first time receiving a foreign leader. Are you sure bringing them here is wise?” Kren asked.

Damar looked around the wide space, craning his neck to peer up at the vaulted ceiling. “Is this not grand enough for your tastes?”

“My tastes run far more mundane, as you’re well aware. I’m only worried about security.”

“It is your _job_ to be worried about security. But even so, you’ve search this structure a dozen times already, and you’re still alive and intact.” Damar glanced at Kren’s prosthetic limbs and cleared his throat. “Poor choice of words,” he added. “But my point stands.”

Kren frowned. “There is always a possibility that we missed something.”

“And yet you permit me to live here.”

“I doubt I could have convinced you to keep searching,” Kren said. “If you remember, your first suggestion was to set up offices in the Federation Relief Center.”

“The Federation has been very generous to us. And they offered.”

The quiet sound from Kren might have been amusement, or it might have been more evidence of his very vocal disapproval of nearly every decision Damar made. It wasn’t clear. Damar decided to pretend he hadn’t heard it to save himself—and Kren—the trouble. Instead, he started down the stairs to await his guest’s arrival.

“Why are you going down there?” Kren called to him when he reached the second floor landing.

“I intend to greet the Grand Nagus as an equal. Looking down on him seems like the wrong way to establish a mutually agreeable relationship.”

“Asking Ferengi for charity seems like a poor way to establish a relationship, if you ask me,” he heard Kren mutter to himself.

“Are you finished? If you’re so concerned with safety, perhaps you should join me down here.”

Kren harrumphed and crossed his arms over the railing. “I’ve never met a Ferengi even _you_ couldn’t handle.”

_“Legate Damar, your guests are prepared for transport to the surface,”_ Nelara informed him over the comm.

“Bring them down,” Damar replied.

Almost immediately, two figures began to materialize in the foyer; one was obviously Rom, with his shorter stature and wide ears, and the other…

Leeta. She appeared beside Rom with her arm wrapped around his. Her eyes locked on Damar almost the instant the transport had finished. There wasn’t a single note of warmth in her piercing stare, and she wore her hatred like a cloak, making Damar feel uncomfortably small in her presence.

“Welcome to Cardassia Prime—” he began, but he was immediately interrupted.

“ _What_ is that _smell?_ ” Leeta exclaimed. She cupped her palm over her mouth and nose and grimaced.

Rom looked around, clearly confused. “I don’t smell anything,” he said.

“Ugh, it’s like…” Leeta stopped and eyed Damar with a sour grimace. “Something _died_.”

“Voles,” Kren announced from overhead. Damar looked up to find him leaning on the railing, looking down on the trio. “It’s an uphill battle keeping them out. We’ve been using poison.” He grinned at Damar.

Rom, having lost interest or simply lost track of the previous conversation, quickly moved on to business. Something Damar was both grateful for and pleasantly surprised to note. “I guess we should finalize those contracts, huh?” he asked, drawing himself up from his typical slouch and smiling.

Damar hesitated just a moment, glancing from Rom to Leeta, who was still pinning him in place with a vicious glare. “Well, there’s… no reason to rush,” he said, trying not to look at her directly. “If you’d like to settle in first—”

“Oh, we won’t be staying _here_ ,” Leeta announced. “Will we?” she asked Rom.

“I guess we don’t have to,” he said with a shrug.

Kren intervened again. “We’ve prepared guest quarters for you upstairs, if you’d rather not make multiple trips to and from.”

Damar, following Kren’s quick thinking, added, “We would be honored if you chose to remain here, and take advantage of our hospitality.”

That seemed to convince Rom; he smiled again and quickly moved past, heading up the main staircase to join Kren, who held an arm out to welcome him. Leeta followed after a moment. She never took her eyes from Damar.

“Perhaps you’d like to have dinner before we discuss business,” Damar said to the two of them.

Leeta made an unpleasant sound. “I don’t have much of an appetite.”

Regardless of how justified her disdain might be—and Damar would be the first to admit she had more than earned her hatred, after the way he had treated the two of them in the past—it still rankled.

At least Rom’s enthusiasm more than made up for it; the man didn’t seem to have a vengeful bone in his body. “I’m starving!” he exclaimed. And that seemed to be enough for Leeta. She shrugged and followed his determined trudge up the stairs at a pace that seemed designed to keep Damar as far away from Rom as possible.

It would be an interesting evening, that much was certain.


End file.
